Microsoft is internally mulling a new project codenamed “Project Strong ARMed,” according to a new job listing. This opening is for a Senior Software Engineer role in Microsoft’s Experiences & Devices (E+D) division, based in Reading, UK, and it aims to optimize the company’s long-standing x64 projects for ARM64.
“As a Senior Software Engineer on Project Strong ARMed, you will be part of a strategic initiative to accelerate Microsoft’s transition to ARM64 architecture across the E+D (Experiences & Devices) division,” Microsoft explained in one of the job listings published in the last month of 2025.
“Collaborate with engineering and research teams to design and implement scalable systems that automate the migration of large-scale software from x64 to ARM64 using generative AI and program analysis,” Microsoft noted under the responsibilities section of the job profile.
It’s unclear whether “Project Strong ARMed” is specifically for consumer PCs or enterprises, but if it turns out to be as good as the job listing wants us to believe, it could be a big deal for Arm64 compatibility. Based on the details seen by Windows Latest, it’s most likely for cloud-related work, not the client-side.
“This role is central to enabling the adoption of Microsoft’s first-party silicon, Cobalt 100, by leveraging AI agents and automation to port existing x64 workloads to ARM-compatible,” Microsoft noted in the job listing.
It is worth noting that Cobalt 100 is not for consumer PCs, and it only powers the company’s in-house Arm-based servers.
“Build and deploy AI-powered software engineering agents that automatically port codebases from x64 to AnyCPU and Windows to Linux.”
I don’t think it’s a far-fetched idea that these changes would benefit consumers at some point, but after the controversy around claims of writing Windows 11 using AI in Rust, I want to make it clear that this is one project within the company and may not be the direction for all of Microsoft.
Microsoft wants to port apps or internal tools to Arm64 for wider compatibility across Windows
Most Microsoft services and internal workloads were built and tested for x64 (Intel or AMD), but they’re not supported natively on ARM64, as it’s a different CPU architecture. In this or any case, porting is not just “recompile and done,” especially in large codebases that power Windows and internal tools or services.
Microsoft’s idea is to port codebases from x64 to AnyCPU, specifically Arm64.
However, the challenge is that Microsoft just can’t port it to any new CPU out of nowhere, as the company needs to work on x64-specific code paths, native libraries and drivers, build scripts and toolchains, performance regressions, etc.
More importantly, this would take years, if not decades, when done manually with a limited budget, but the company’s job listing also proposes a solution for this ambitious project.
Microsoft wants to do this faster using AI “software engineering agents” that can help convert code and submit real pull requests for porting work.
According to the job listing, Microsoft wants to “build and deploy AI-powered software engineering agents,” which means it wants the tool to behave like a junior engineer (but automated), doing tasks like:
- canning a repo and finding non-portable code
- changing code and build files
- replacing unsupported APIs or libraries
- updating CI pipelines
- generating a PR with a clear diff and explanation
- running tests and iterating
The big picture
A lot of tidbits in the job listing point to Microsoft Azure, so I’ve reasons to believe that the project is specifically for Windows Cloud, not Windows consumer (client edition), but it goes without saying that Arm64-related advancements across Microsoft will benefit everyone.
For example, Microsoft says it makes sense to optimize for Arm64 for Windows internal tools, services, and cloud to power the “power Microsoft 365 and Copilot for the next decade.” Again, as I mentioned, this is likely the vision of one of the teams within the company, and does not necessarily represent Microsoft’s future plan.
“Evaluate service dependencies and ARM64 compatibility and contribute to the development of AI agents (e.g. ,Chronicle, Bandish) that generate pull requests for code base porting,” Microsoft added in the job listing.
We don’t know how many people are working on “Project Strong ARMed,” but Microsoft is clearly investing in it, and it makes sense. Windows on Arm64 isn’t perfect, but it’s slowly picking up pace, and consumers actually prefer it for reasons like performance and battery life.
In fact, some people really want Windows on Arm64 to succeed, as it would give a much-needed challenge to Intel and AMD dominating the PC CPU market.
What about you? Have you considered trying Windows on Arm64 after recent advancements?
